The walk from a subway station in Brooklyn, New York, to a secure facility for kids in the criminal justice system takes all of five minutes. The route passes by a laundromat, a Chinese takeout restaurant, a bodega with fresh flowers on the sidewalk and a college preparatory high school.

Indiana prosecutors have charged a couple with abandoning their adopted daughter in 2013 and moving to Canada, leaving the girl, who was just 11 years old and has dwarfism, in a rented apartment but providing her with no other financial support.

Leonie Hermantin wants to do anything she can to make the Miami neighborhood of Little Haiti better for its residents and for the rich culture symbolized in murals — even if it means having a loose alliance with a giant commercial and residential project and losing friends in the process.